Category Archives: Gifted Assessment & Education 資優評估與教育

*MM, a 13 year highly gifted girl at her middle school, was happy with her summer school doing her favorite subject about computer engineering. This is one of the most popular summer school programs for the gifted and talented offered by Johns Hopkins University. This summer, she had a good time learning advanced knowledge and meeting mental peers with comparable abilities.

After the summer program, MM decided that she would not sleep in the class anymore when she returned to Hong Kong. She would rather take the advantage of boring classes, which was too easy for her and lacking any intellectual challenge, to do programming on her laptop.

Last week, she came to see me and looked completely exhausted after school. It is just beginning of the school year. I haven’t ever seen her as tiring as such.

MM comes to see me regularly since treatment of ADHD two years ago. She has some self mentalizing difficulties that it is so hard for her to process feelings and regulate her mood. She was used to getting angry and fighting back whenever she got into social conflicts with her peers.

Over the past year, her parents complaint that MM refused to turn off the computer late at night. She appeared to be increasingly addictive to internet. In the beginning of this summer, she told me that she slept around 6am and woke up around 3pm. Her mother was so fed up with all the fierce but endless quarrels in the middle of the night urging her so badly to go to bed. She thought that her daughter didn’t listen. She just wants to give up. She thought that her husband would be able to coerce MM to turn off the computer and put her to bed, he came home very late though. The mother didn’t want to get involved anymore.

MM told me that the internet game made it possible to escape from thinking about all the unresolved problems. When she turned off the desktop, she would turn on the iPad to watch videos while lying on the bed with her headphone on. It would help her shut off from heated conflicts, if any. Nonetheless, sleep problem is always an issue so disturbing to her. It often takes almost an hour for her to fall asleep. Obviously, she relied so much on watching videos on the iPad to soothe herself.

This afternoon, seeing MM so exhausted and sleepy, I asked her if he took her ADHD medication. She said that she quit medication since end of the summer school. I asked her whether she found anything different after withdrawal from the ADHD medication. She didn’t notice it.

I contacted her mother to cross check the situation. Like MM, she said that she did not notice any difference. She added that MM would make a bit scene when she was asked to stop doing any computer and to go to bed. She didn’t think medical fee for ADHD treatment worth it as far as she didn’t make any improvement regarding her computer behavior.

It is crystal clear that MM would not be able to express her feelings about her school and family. She will likely be inattentive and lack of motivation to do anything mentally effortful.

I ask her if she wants to do programming on her laptop when she gets bored in the class. She yawned and stretched her arms without answering my question. I then repeat that question. I am not sure whether he doesn’t pay attention to my question or it’s too overwhelming to think of school classes without much mentally stimulation to her.

The paradox is concerned with withdrawal from ADHD medication in a way to desensitize her frustration and picking up the treatment for realizing her vocational aspiration of computer programming.

Anyway, very few people will notice the silent suffering that MM is going through. I pray that God will bless her more.

Note*: MM is a pseudo name and modifications are made to formulate this story.

CK doing Year 10 in the Eastern Coast spends time with his family for this summer holiday in Hong Kong. He studied overseas a year ago and learnt a lot from peer interaction, teacher-student relationship, interactive learning, academic and school adjustment and so forth.

CK couldn’t imagine his growth in confidence and social leadership over the past year. He admits that frequent quarrels and fights between family members since childhood have shaped his withdrawn behavior. He finds unresolved conflicts very overwhelming. He tends to present himself as outgoing, competent and high achiever. Specifically, he can’t handle all the communication problems in the family.

This summer, he starts talking to his elder sister and mom as an adult and stating clearly that he wants them to communicate their true feelings. He doesn’t want them to hide their feelings behind the smart phone, iPad or other forms of technology. He feels unhappy about all the temper tantrum or unnecessary fights improperly channelling personal feelings through personal criticism, complaint about domestic chores and the like. In several incidences, CK urges his family members to admit their feelings and openly share with family members.

At the end of this summer, CK comes to see me for a review of his personal growth. He says that he is able to turn the family interaction to be more meaningful and effective than before. While he feels capable to reshape the pattern of conflicts in his family, he is concerned about his sense of loneliness and fear. He is worried about the family dynamics without his presence as the facilitator in the following 4 months as he will be staying in the U.S. until Christmas.

He admits that he knows what and when to help people close to them. Few people will know that he is so exhausted and depressed inside.

He is so vulnerable. He tells me that he is eager to help vulnerable people. I know. The truth is, it’s easy to divert our pain from oneself to others who are vulnerable. That’s why true friends are meant to be companion with shared joy and pain therefore no one is left behind along the journey of personal growth.

Vulnerabilities can be a great teacher who helps us recognize that we grow from shared vulnerabilities. Over-identification as a helper, over the course of lifetime, may well be an alert.

More and more creative young people find mobile technology part of their life. These people that I am referring to are not simply users of APPs for game or other entertainment. They are young entrepreneur.

Last week, I met some young adults in a local government-initiated entrepreneur center for incubation of mobile technology, including the design of APP. Their creative and diligent work is admirable! They work in teams pooling their effort to create APPs.

Some friends of mine from Mobile Technology industries told me that growing number of enterprising and creative people all over the world work in teams for Tech Startups. By pooling their individual strengths and talent for a target product, these teams are able to create new APPs which potentially appeal to millions of APP users. It is hard to imagine the social impact of such team effort.

What interests me is the growth of these teams? It is a rule rather than exception that majority of startup teams start from scratch. Team members contribute their special knowledge, effort and time Pro Bono. They have to trust others.

While maximizing the opportunity of success, the team has to speed up the content and product development of the new APP. In order to attract more intelligence such as business planners, strategists and fund raising agents, the team has to disclose varying proportion of their invention. Leaking information is always an issue. One of the solutions may be speeding up the production and business growth while appropriate measures for protection of the intellectual property par se should be in place. Just like a forest burn-and-slash man who provides food for his tribe, he has to set fire in a way safe enough to grow crops for feeding his people. He has to balance threats and productivity by managing pros and cons aptly.

Finding a job for secure future is a kind of outdated or 20th Century mindset. Maximizing creative potentials and returns, in the 21st Century, require radical flexibility of minds. Look! Review of the Journey of personal, professional and social growth of people who started up social media like Facebook, Instagram and many others, we find optimism, shared risks, limitless capacity of problem solving, flexible minds and friendship.

Such new culture of APP or Tech startup teams reveals the truth that individual talent is not sufficient in itself to make a difference. I strongly recommend gifted and talented young to develop their business intelligence since elementary school. Instead of being a frequent user of mobile technology, it is so much fun to get involved with teamwork for turning innovative ideas into real. It holds true especially for highly able people with Autism Spectrum Disorders.

In sum, the pearl of startup experience is enlarging the social impact of shared passion. Making meaningful friendship is the corner stone for sustainable growth whereas personal and professional growth is inseparable.

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Autonomous Learners’ Model (ALM) group 「自主學習者」小組

Each iteration of ALM offered by ICGT closely follow the guidelines set out by Prof George Betts. Since we believe in the satisfaction that self-directed learning gives to gifted individuals, we place special emphasis on students’ individual needs through individual development, orientation, in-depth study, seminars and enrichment. Each student takes the role of learner as well as facilitator.